


Actually Stuck

by narcissisticSpaghetti



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Claustrophobia, Humanstuck, Silly Stories, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 21:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3333623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcissisticSpaghetti/pseuds/narcissisticSpaghetti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unfortunate story these two will eventually end up telling each other's kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Actually Stuck

The only reason Jade and Eridan were both sitting in Jade’s living room was the group project the Cartography professor had assigned, and the only reason they were alone in the house was that her grandfather was out for the day as he often was, and the third member of their group had never shown up.

His name was Carter, and he had promised to show up but they had already waited a whole hour and a half at the agreed upon park before it started to rain, so the two who had showed up had had to move the project indoors. It wasn’t going so great, to put it lightly.

Jade and Eridan didn’t really get along. No one was really sure why this was so, but anyone could tell just by looking at them. They had this hostility between them, which made the project considerably more difficult, but they had decided to call a temporary truce. It was only supposed to last until the teacher graded said project, which was still most of a week away.

The biggest problem lay in that they really couldn’t decide what to do their project on.

The instructions clearly said, “Create a map of any fictional location out of any materials you deem fit, and be as detailed as possible.”

Jade wanted to do some magical island in the middle of the ocean with a volcano, she wasn’t really sure why this was but she felt it was important. Eridan insisted they do some location from WoW, which made Jade snicker quite often but she knew nothing of WoW and didn’t much care to. They had already spent a full 45 minutes arguing over this, slowly getting louder and her neighbors were strongly considering walking over to knock on the door and tell them to get a room.

“Silvermoon City is plenty detailed enough to make a map, we can pull them off the wiki or somethin’!”

“I have said it before and I’ll say it again, I will not make some stupid map from your stupid RPG! I have no interest in it so if you want to you should make your own later, but for now we are not even going to discuss it any further! No!”

“But it’s-”

“LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!” Jade decided to shove her hands over her ears and began to drown him out. “NO WORLD OF WARCRAFT! LALALA!”

“You know what? FINE. I’m going to take a break.” Eridan dropped his sketchbook onto the table with a resounding thud, and stormed off down the hall. “Where is your fuckin’ bathroom?”

“You should have already passed it!” She called after him, exasperated. “It’s the one with the little fish on the knob.” She turned back to the table to pick up her glass of water before something occurred to her and her eyes widened, “But wait don’t close the-!” She heard the bathroom door swing shut before she finished her sentence and her shoulders dropped in shock. “Door.”

“What?” He shouted through the wood. “Did you say somthin’?”

She considered for a moment before deciding against telling him just yet, and instead she began to giggle quietly. “Nevermind, I’ll tell you when you’re done.”

He ignored her and went about his business, and when he finished he made sure to wash his hands twice, and as he was drying his hands he called “What was it you were goin’ ta say?”

Jade had moved down the hall so she was standing just a couple feet from the door, and she was smirking. “I was going to say the doorknob is busted, don’t close the door all the way. But you already closed it, I didn’t want to freak you out too soon.”

“ _What_?” He immediately tried the doorknob, rattling it loudly and failing to get it to turn even a little. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

“It didn’t occur to me until you were already closing it!”

“Well isn’t that just convenient. How am I supposed to get out of this tiny bathroom, anyway?” He tried the handle again, and a third time. “I hate unfamiliar bathrooms.”

“I’m pretty sure most people do. And unfortunately, I don’t really have an answer to your question. Usually we leave it open about an inch. When it broke I got out on a fluke, we had to disassemble the knob to pull open the door next time.”

“Well then why wouldn’t you leave the handle off?”

“The dog likes to stick his paws through and pull the door open. It got out of hand.”

“I don’t want to know. So are you going to disassemble the doorknob this time?”

“We don’t have any flathead screwdrivers.”

“Then where in the world did you get one last time?”

“Mrs. Salvatore next door, she lives alone and she’s out of town until next Thursday.”

“Then go buy one!”

“Closest hardware store is like 3 miles away and I don’t have a car.”

“Borrow mine, for fuck’s sake!”

“I think you have the keys in your pocket.”

“I-” Eridan patted his pockets and sighed. “Well fuck. Couldn’t I slide just the one key out to ya?”

“You could try it, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble just to borrow your car and drive out to the hardware store.”

“Either that or you find some other way to break open this door, and I’m starting to like that idea better an’ better.”

“Fine, slide it out.”

Eridan pulled his keys out of his pocket and slid the car key off the ring. It took a bit of delicacy to lower himself to the floor around the sink and avoiding exposing himself to much of the surface, as it was covered in grime. But he somehow managed to shove the key mostly under the door before it got rather snugly lodged at that really unfortunate angle where there was no pulling it out.

“NO!” He shouted, shoving his pinky under the door desperately trying to dislodge the small object. “No, no no no! Oh my fuckin’ god this can’t be happenin’ ta me! No fuckin’ way!”

Jade tried too, but she had no luck with her fingers. “I’m gonna go grab a fork or something, gonna try to dislodge it!” She called, and got up to head for the kitchen. As she made her way down the hall she could hear him mumbling to himself, though she couldn’t hear what he was saying. All this struck her as kind of funny, if twisted, and almost too comical to be real.

“Hey Eridan? I’m gonna call my grandfather. Maybe he can help?”

“How far away is he?” Eridan called.

“Well, it’s a bit of a drive.”

“Any longer ‘n it would take you to hit the hardware store?”

“Yeah actually, you’re right.” She opened the drawer and pulled out a long fork, and carried it back to the bathroom door. “What if I just left you in there and finished the project without you? Do you think it would turn out okay?”

“What? No! That’s _days_ worth of work and I am not going to sit here in this tiny ass bathroom waiting for that! Get the fuckin’ key and get me outta here!”

It took a bit of work but eventually Jade managed to dislodge the car key, and she pulled it out from under the door. She briefly considered just never opening the door and stealing his car, but that wouldn’t end well. First would be the kidnapping charges and the stealing charges and then listening to him scream bloody murder the whole time would not be pleasant. Not to mention, access to one of two bathrooms would be gone, and having two people in their house sometimes they were both needed.

“Okay, I got it. I’ll be back in like twenty minutes.” She pocketed the key and headed for the door, grabbing her coat off the hook.

“Oh, Jade?” He called after her.

“Yeah?”

He considered for a moment before replying. “Nevermind. Hurry, please!”

 

~

 

It took her a full ten minutes to find the store, four minutes to find a worker who wasn’t super busy, and another four minutes considering sizes of screwdrivers to make a decision. The employee who helped her find the screwdriver had absently asked “You need it for anything special?” And she hadn’t really had the heart to tell him there was a twenty-something year old boy stuck in her first floor bathroom, probably reciting ancient poems to keep from panicking.

Once she had her screwdriver, she had had to wait in a line of line 6 orders because too many registers were broken and it was somehow a special deals day and was one of the most busy days of the month, so by the time she managed to get home a full 45 minutes had passed. She opened her front door and was greeted with loud banging and hysterics.

“Please come home, it’s cramped and disgustin’ in ‘ere and I don’t wanna die a virgin in a fuckin’ toilet! Jade please I’m beggin’ ya it’s been so long!!”

She was kind of surprised he hadn’t heard the front door open, but with the banging she supposed it was believable. She shut the door rather loudly to try and get his attention. It worked, the banging stopped.

“Jade! Jade is that you?”

“Yeah it’s me.”

“Lord almighty it’s about fuckin’ time! Open the door, I been tryin’ the whole time you was gone and it didn’t work for shit!”

“Calm down, I have the screwdriver I’ll be there in a bit.” She pulled off her shoes, shrugged off her jacket and pulled the screwdriver out of the plastic bag. “I have to cut this packaging off first.” She passed the bathroom on her way back to the kitchen, pulled out the scissors and cut off the cardboard cardstock tag, the zip ties, and then freed it from the plastic wrap. “Got it. Hold on.”

“I been ‘holdin’ on’ for almost an hour now.” Eridan snapped, but he backed away from the door and waited.

She tried the screwdriver, made sure it fit, and then began to unscrew the doorknob. But she decided to pull one last gag. “Oh no,” She said quietly as she worked.

“What, what?” He asked, his voice cracking on the first word. “What’s wrong?”

“I got the wrong size, it’s too big!”

“Good fucking lord Harley how the hell do ya get a screwdriver too fucking big?! What are we gonna do now?” He dissolved rather quickly into more muttering and he started to sound a bit panicked, she suddenly felt bad for him. She certainly wouldn’t appreciate being locked in a toilet for almost an hour, and then being lied to.

“No, I was joking, I’m sorry. I’ve got it, almost done.” She assured him.

“That’s not fuckin’ funny,” He said quietly, and then they both were silent.

And then she remembered something, and stopped what she was doing.

“Do you remember, second day of Cartography, when you stepped on my foot?”

He hesitated before responding. “Yeah, what of it?”

“Apologize.”

“What?”

“I want you to apologize.”

“Why in the world would I do that?”

“You didn’t apologize that day, you stepped on my foot and then told me to watch where I was going. My big toe was bruised for a week, it was really painful.”

“Why are you bringing this up now of all times?”

“Because I finally have something to hold over you until you do.”

“I’m not gonna fuckin’ apologize, that was months ago.”

“Then I’m not gonna open the door.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Jade put down the screwdriver and sat down against the wall three feet away, with her knees folded up and her toes pressed against the bottom of the door. “I’m not gonna open the door until you apologize for stepping on my toe.”

They sat there in silence for a while, a mutually uncomfortable stand-off, but they both knew who held the power.

“Fine. I’m sorry. You happy?”

“That’s all I needed.” Jade sat up and finished the job, pulling off the doorknob and pulled it open. “You’re free to go.”

He almost fell out the door and into the hallway, and he quickly scrambled down the hall to get away from the bathroom.

They sat there for a short while, just kind of taking each other in, processing what just happened, before Eridan said “We speak of this to no one.”

“Are you really a virgin?” She asked.

He glared at her for a bit. “Would you believe me if I said no?”

“Not really.”

“No one.”

“Agreed.” It was too ridiculous for her to believe it anyway, she wouldn’t expect her friends to believe her even if she tried to tell them.

They were both quiet for a while again, before Eridan stood up, brushed himself off, and puffed himself up like the pompous bastard he was. “Hey Harley? What do you say we blow off this assignment just for today and go grab some lunch instead?”

She briefly considered his proposal and then nodded. “Yeah, I’m cool with that.”

 


End file.
